pssshhhh, terrible idea. they should extract it themselves. dmt-nexus and the ayahuasca forums. ktbotanicals or maya ethnobotanicals(europe) for the root bark.

Wed Aug 29, 2012 8:38 am

mancabbage

Joined: 29 Jun 2005
Posts: 9285
Location: london

you done dmt zeem? My mind fuckery days are pretty much over these days but DMT was always one that intrigued me.

Wed Aug 29, 2012 4:00 pm

Hellen Earthcould be a girl. could be a guy.

Joined: 09 Jan 2003
Posts: 1285
Location: Fitchburg, MA

same here, mancabbage. i haven't done a psychedelic in six or seven years, but i've had this real inclination to seek out DMT lately.

the allure is that you go from baseline conscoiusness and spike way up to outerspace then back to baseline so rapidly. plus the similarity of experiences across all types of users gives it an added mystique.

Using Bitcoin in that architecture helps solve the problem of how to "store" value in a barter system.

The Achilles heel of the Bitcoin system is the eventual need of users in that system to convert money from Bitcoin back to something that can be used to, e.g., pay rent. The second you start cashing out large amounts of Bitcoin with one of the market makers in the currency, you are going to be asked to show a source of that income, and have your life scrutinized for clandestine income streams. "Currency speculation" only gets you so far.

Paying steady amounts of money into those same market makers over a long period of time is fraught with many of the same problems.

It doesn't help that shipping drugs across state lines gets you a whole different class of prison time if you get caught.

There are ways of mitigating many of the legal risks in a system that gives you a deniable digital currency. For example, if you're concerned that a given merchant in the Silk Road system may be under legal surveillance or may be a government entity trying to catch buyers, you can simply walk into a McDonalds with a laptop, get on their free wi-fi, use it to send Bitcoin to your prospective merchant to purchase contraband of some form, and have it shipped to a neighbor or co-worker you don't like very much. If law enforcement swarms on them, the same technology that lets you plausibly deny that you made the purchase prevents them from plausibly denying that they did not make it. In the long run, a majority of the contraband exchanges made through this system are going to have to work that way, with people prepared to walk away from real chunks of product and untraceable digital currency in order to preserve the deniable quality of the system.

You're far more vulnerable to being a target of this kind of "chaff spreading" activity if you're a known owner of Bitcoins, of course--and due to the extremely low adoption rate of the currency, being a known owner of the currency also makes you significantly less likely to be able to use it as a defense.

For a Bitcoin-driven system like this to work, you need to be able to buy and sell real commodities on it. Not just drugs and things like drugs, but everything. Beats, baked goods, garden vegetables, web design services, child care, everything. Unless a critical mass of goods and services exchanged through the system are legal, you will never be able to buy enough things within that system to make it worthwhile to retain and circulate Bitcoin assets rather than trying to convert them back to cash.

I do not participate in contraband markets. I don't even like to do relatively benign stuff like swapping burned mix CDs with friends.

If I were going to participate in one of these markets:
- I would be as cagey as possible in how I initially obtained Bitcoins.
- I would be as cagey as possible in how I stored the Bitcoins I did have.
- I would be as cagey as possible in how I spent the Bitcoins I obtained.
- I would deliberately spend Bitcoins in the way I described above, using them to send random things to random but geographically nearby people. Whatever I purchased for myself would be one of half a dozen or more like transactions, such that I looked like just as much of an innocent bystander as many of the others.
- As someone who has now spoken in public (using a fairly open-secret pseudonym) about how I would do this, I would attempt to select/target others from my region who had also engaged in similarly minded discussions.
- As someone who has now spoken in public about how I would do this, I'm much less likely to do it at all. Like we talked about in that other thread: I assume any crypto I use can be broken. I assume any communications I make can be overheard. I avoid participating in black markets because I do not believe I am smart enough to do it without getting caught and because the consequences of being caught are an effective deterrent for me.

Much of this caution becomes unnecessary as use of the market for legal purposes increases to a critical mass, of course. There are 80-year-olds who shop on Craigslist and eBay more than I do. My lack of interest in obtaining or consuming anything contraband means that I'll be just as much of a late adopter with something like The Silk Road as I have been with those other marketplaces. I realize that me and other people who avoid having much to hide participating in things like Bitcoin and Tor makes it easier for people who have good and just reasons for wanting to engage in clandestine activities to succeed in their goals, but I'm fundamentally lazy about these things, and besides that I don't want to get hassled by The Man.

That said, I don't think systems like this will ever hit a true critical mass. The government will justify shutting down market makers in the system using the same arguments and the same processes they began using to clamp down on hawala systems post-9/11.

Can you cop some Bitcoin legally, use some "Silk Road" class system to send it to a random identity on the Internet, and receive some DMT in the mail sometime later? Probably. Will you get ripped off instead? Maybe. Will you find yourself under significant law enforcement scrutiny because of your actions either now or in the future? It depends. Is it safe for you to engage in these sorts of transactions on a regular basis, either as a buyer or a seller? Absolutely not.

I wouldn't feel the same way if you were talking about using the Bitcoin system to do something "grey market" like buy and sell gold and characters in World of Warcraft. Systems like this one will eventually completely shatter top-down control over EULA-governed game economies, and law enforcement won't do a damn thing to help them.

But what you're talking about is using the system to move illegal recreational drugs across state lines. Except for WMDs and their precursors, this is the exact black market use case for Bitcoin and similar technologies which is subject to the greatest scrutiny, from the most powerful and empowered law enforcement entities in the world.

I realize I may be the only person to read this thread who is more enamored with the technology issues surrounding your idea than with the fun "your friend" could have if it works, but I'm going to say it anyway:

Caveat emptor.

Wed Aug 29, 2012 9:19 pm

Captiv8

Joined: 25 Aug 2006
Posts: 8546
Location: Third Coast

Aren't the dangers of buying drugs, especially online, obvious unless you're really fucking high when you do so?

Speaking of which, where are my DMT users? I've been interested in this substance for some time now, but am worried about the intensity. What's the scoop?

Thu Aug 30, 2012 4:29 am

icarus502kung-pwn master

Joined: 01 Jul 2002
Posts: 11291
Location: ann arbor

Mark in Minnesota wrote: I was talking about something like The Silk Road years ago, here.

Using Bitcoin in that architecture helps solve the problem of how to "store" value in a barter system.

The Achilles heel of the Bitcoin system is the eventual need of users in that system to convert money from Bitcoin back to something that can be used to, e.g., pay rent. The second you start cashing out large amounts of Bitcoin with one of the market makers in the currency, you are going to be asked to show a source of that income, and have your life scrutinized for clandestine income streams. "Currency speculation" only gets you so far.

Paying steady amounts of money into those same market makers over a long period of time is fraught with many of the same problems.

It doesn't help that shipping drugs across state lines gets you a whole different class of prison time if you get caught.

There are ways of mitigating many of the legal risks in a system that gives you a deniable digital currency. For example, if you're concerned that a given merchant in the Silk Road system may be under legal surveillance or may be a government entity trying to catch buyers, you can simply walk into a McDonalds with a laptop, get on their free wi-fi, use it to send Bitcoin to your prospective merchant to purchase contraband of some form, and have it shipped to a neighbor or co-worker you don't like very much. If law enforcement swarms on them, the same technology that lets you plausibly deny that you made the purchase prevents them from plausibly denying that they did not make it. In the long run, a majority of the contraband exchanges made through this system are going to have to work that way, with people prepared to walk away from real chunks of product and untraceable digital currency in order to preserve the deniable quality of the system.

You're far more vulnerable to being a target of this kind of "chaff spreading" activity if you're a known owner of Bitcoins, of course--and due to the extremely low adoption rate of the currency, being a known owner of the currency also makes you significantly less likely to be able to use it as a defense.

For a Bitcoin-driven system like this to work, you need to be able to buy and sell real commodities on it. Not just drugs and things like drugs, but everything. Beats, baked goods, garden vegetables, web design services, child care, everything. Unless a critical mass of goods and services exchanged through the system are legal, you will never be able to buy enough things within that system to make it worthwhile to retain and circulate Bitcoin assets rather than trying to convert them back to cash.

I do not participate in contraband markets. I don't even like to do relatively benign stuff like swapping burned mix CDs with friends.

If I were going to participate in one of these markets:
- I would be as cagey as possible in how I initially obtained Bitcoins.
- I would be as cagey as possible in how I stored the Bitcoins I did have.
- I would be as cagey as possible in how I spent the Bitcoins I obtained.
- I would deliberately spend Bitcoins in the way I described above, using them to send random things to random but geographically nearby people. Whatever I purchased for myself would be one of half a dozen or more like transactions, such that I looked like just as much of an innocent bystander as many of the others.
- As someone who has now spoken in public (using a fairly open-secret pseudonym) about how I would do this, I would attempt to select/target others from my region who had also engaged in similarly minded discussions.
- As someone who has now spoken in public about how I would do this, I'm much less likely to do it at all. Like we talked about in that other thread: I assume any crypto I use can be broken. I assume any communications I make can be overheard. I avoid participating in black markets because I do not believe I am smart enough to do it without getting caught and because the consequences of being caught are an effective deterrent for me.

Much of this caution becomes unnecessary as use of the market for legal purposes increases to a critical mass, of course. There are 80-year-olds who shop on Craigslist and eBay more than I do. My lack of interest in obtaining or consuming anything contraband means that I'll be just as much of a late adopter with something like The Silk Road as I have been with those other marketplaces. I realize that me and other people who avoid having much to hide participating in things like Bitcoin and Tor makes it easier for people who have good and just reasons for wanting to engage in clandestine activities to succeed in their goals, but I'm fundamentally lazy about these things, and besides that I don't want to get hassled by The Man.

That said, I don't think systems like this will ever hit a true critical mass. The government will justify shutting down market makers in the system using the same arguments and the same processes they began using to clamp down on hawala systems post-9/11.

Can you cop some Bitcoin legally, use some "Silk Road" class system to send it to a random identity on the Internet, and receive some DMT in the mail sometime later? Probably. Will you get ripped off instead? Maybe. Will you find yourself under significant law enforcement scrutiny because of your actions either now or in the future? It depends. Is it safe for you to engage in these sorts of transactions on a regular basis, either as a buyer or a seller? Absolutely not.

I wouldn't feel the same way if you were talking about using the Bitcoin system to do something "grey market" like buy and sell gold and characters in World of Warcraft. Systems like this one will eventually completely shatter top-down control over EULA-governed game economies, and law enforcement won't do a damn thing to help them.

But what you're talking about is using the system to move illegal recreational drugs across state lines. Except for WMDs and their precursors, this is the exact black market use case for Bitcoin and similar technologies which is subject to the greatest scrutiny, from the most powerful and empowered law enforcement entities in the world.

I realize I may be the only person to read this thread who is more enamored with the technology issues surrounding your idea than with the fun "your friend" could have if it works, but I'm going to say it anyway:

Caveat emptor.

Wow. Thanks for this, Mark. I've read a lot about the technology and the issues surrounding it, largely because the idea of decentralized currency is seductive to me, but I've never read anything like this. Very much appreciated.

Thu Aug 30, 2012 9:30 am

T-Wrexp00ny tang

Joined: 30 Jun 2002
Posts: 6416
Location: Detroit, Michigan

Hellen Earth wrote: the allure is that you go from baseline conscoiusness and spike way up to outerspace then back to baseline so rapidly..

I partook in a bowl of 20x salvia divinorum once, and it's a lot similar.
Weirdest 10 to 15 minutes of my life.
Awesome journey.. but not ready to try again.

When he was far away from this country, a very very good friend I know did. From what HE said, I'd say any semi-stable, twenty something sage francis fan wouldn't have a problem with it. Bottom line is don't do it if it doesn't feel right (thus the immediate reaction to silk road. contaminates, mostly.). fear isn't the worst thing to have going into it, but it will stop you from relaxing. The workers dressed in vaudevillian clothing that tended a massive futuristic steampunk machine told him not to say much more. My friend says it gives him the best nights of sleep ever, and the next day feels like melted gold.

Thu Aug 30, 2012 1:18 pm

xGasPricesx

Joined: 23 May 2008
Posts: 1612

It's sort of like a rather intense mushroom trip condensed into 10-15 minutes, so the intensity is compounded by the significantly shorter time span. I think salvia is a fairly legitimate comparison to DMT, but from my anecdotal experiences of stories I've heard, salvia is a bit more unpredictable in terms of whether you will have a "good" or a "bad" trip. Like with any drug, I would never say it's something you have to try or anything like that, but if you are interested and want to do it I would just recommend putting a decent amount of planning into where you do it and who you do it with. Always try to put yourself in the most emotionally comfortable place with the people you have total trust in if you are going to try DMT, or any other hallucinogen for that matter. Do not go out into the middle of the woods or some other place you are not completely familiar with if it is your first experience with it, and be wary of any other advice from anybody telling you that you should do that.

Thu Aug 30, 2012 9:30 pm

mancabbage

Joined: 29 Jun 2005
Posts: 9285
Location: london

hmm fuck salvia, me and my mates did that back in the day, one of us ran out the tent and tried to dive head first into the fire, the other rotated on the spot for a while and thought he was dead while i just sat there also thinking i'd just died and pulled the biggest whitey on the way, awful stuff

Fri Aug 31, 2012 7:39 am

Captiv8

Joined: 25 Aug 2006
Posts: 8546
Location: Third Coast

What the hell does "pulled the biggest whitey" mean? I'm laughing just thinking about the possibilities.

And I would only do hallucinogens in a safe environment. The last thing I want is to jump out of a window or carve the Ten Commandments into my arm. DMT sounds like something I might try but would never actively seek out.

Fri Aug 31, 2012 7:20 pm

wesfau

Joined: 22 Mar 2005
Posts: 705

Captiv8 wrote: What the hell does "pulled the biggest whitey" mean? I'm laughing just thinking about the possibilities.

Precisely why mancabbage is my favorite poster.

Fri Aug 31, 2012 9:42 pm

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